After our Thai brunch a few months back at
Les Larmes du Tigre, we decided to try the brunch at Blue Elephant Brussels. These two restaurants are the only ones in Brussels offering Thai Sunday buffet lunches (as of November 2012 - newcomers welcome!).
Blue Elephant Brussels was opened in 1980 by Karl, a Belgian, and his Thai wife, Khun. Today it has expanded into a global group with more than a dozen locations, including Bangkok and Phuket that also have cooking schools attached. They even ventured into Indian restaurants - La Porte des Indes - in London and on Avenue Louise, which according to reviews do not offer the most authentic Indian cuisine... They also manufacture and distribute grocery products, sold among others in some GB supermarkets in Brussels at fairly high prices.
Blue Elephant is located on Chaussée de Waterloo in Uccle. The restaurtant is quite inconspicuous and can easily be missed when driving by.
The interior is decorated in a traditional Siam style, complete with wooden panels, plants and flowers.
The restaurant seats 100 persons over 2 floors. The seats were rather uncomfortable with the cushions in need of some new covers. The biggest problem, however, was that they had tried to cram way too many chairs and tables, such that one of us had to stand up several times to let a lady walk out of her chair.
I had a look at the 2nd floor. Try to avoid being seated here for the brunch, since one has to climb the dark narrow stairs several times with food plates from the buffet downstairs.
Let's look at the buffet, with a selection of appetizers, including prawns grilled at the table.
Lots of choices at the salad bar, with some beautifully carved fruits as decoration.
The main dishes: rice plus 5 curries, and a noodle dish. All were fine, especially the hot curry with chunks of red chillies. The watery Chicken red curry, however, was a notch below that of
Les Larmes du Tigre, which uses better quality and fresher ingredients. Since they did not have any vegetarian mains in the buffet, a waiter offered to order a veggie stir-fry from the kitchen for any vegetarians.
The noodle bar:
For dessert, there was an extensive choice of fresh fruits...
Notice the macarons and tiramisu at the end - very Thai indeed!:)
In the drinks menu we spotted the young coconut, which we had to order. Refreshing, although it didn't taste very fresh.
Finally, as we were leaving, we saw various grocery ingredients for sale.
So what's our verdict ? In terms of food, Blue Elephant offers a much better Sunday buffet brunch both quantity and quality wise, albeit at a 25% higher price. Les Larmes du Tigre, on the other hand, had a more classy setting with enough space between the tables, and the waiting staff were friendlier and more efficient.
Blue Elephant Thai Restaurant
Uccle, Brussels
www.blueelephant.com/brussels
